At Some Disputed Barricade
by Panache
Summary: There is a before and there is an after. And in the after, what came before doesn't matter quite so much. :: Set in the Alt-Post-Apocalyptic-Future of "Pandora"; The end of the world makes strange-bedfellows.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I have a thing for post-apocalyptic fanfiction so while I haven't been following season 9 as closely as I probably should to pull this off, I loved the idea of Chloe being the leader of a resistance movement in "Pandora" and I couldn't help but wonder about what Lex would think if he was alive to see the worst of everything he ever predicted or used to justify his actions come to pass. So because I don't think there can possibly be enough Pandora fiction out there (because there's just too much we didn't get to see), this is my probably fairly unique spin on elements of that year. There will be some Chlex. There will be moments of Chlollie, but more than anything . . . this is Chloe's story.

**Timeline Notes:** Since this fic works off the presumption that since Lois didn't come back and that's what made the future go wonky, _none_ of Season 9 happened exactly the way its shown on screen, allow me a little artistic license with the particulars.

This will be a max of two to three chapters long. The quotes at the beginning of each chapter come from Alan Seeger's WWI poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."

* * *

_I have a rendezvous with Death  
At some disputed barricade,  
When Spring comes back with rustling shade  
And apple-blossoms fill the air—  
I have a rendezvous with Death  
When Spring brings back blue days and fair_

----

There is a before and there is an after.

Before she was just Chloe. She was the best-friend, the sidekick, the widowed hacker. Waiting to be seen, to be recognized.

But this is not that Chloe's story. This story belongs to the leader, the fighter, the rebel. Belongs to the woman who came after.

After the towers went online and the sun went blood red.

After anonymity, invisibility became her shield, her weapon. After she loses her name and becomes a legend.

After Zod rose.

And the world went to hell.

After everything changes.

This story belongs to Watchtower.

-----

**August 2009**

The day construction is completed on the towers. The day Chloe is reborn into something new, someone hacks her system for the first and only time.  
She's shutting them out as fast as she can, boxing them in and trying to backtrace, fingers flying across the keyboard when suddenly, inexplicably they're gone.

But not without a trace.

For one terrifying minute every screen goes white with a single message—

_IF I CAN FIND YOU, THEY CAN TOO._

__

RUN.

_X_

She cuts power to the Watchtower fifteen minutes later. Takes her guns. Takes her laptop. And goes underground.

Above her she can here the screams of people dying, of the world ending. She shuts her ears and closes her eyes and keeps moving.

Somebody has to live to fight.

It's months before she starts to believe she's the one it should be.

-----

They find each other by chance or fate's design. Bits and pieces of humanity that were smart enough, or stubborn enough or lucky enough to escape, scraping by on peanut butter and candy bars and fading hope.

Children without parents, husbands without wives, mothers without families. The remnants, the lose-ends, the orphans. They come together, cling to each other.

They survive.

For the first few days they all talk about the Blur, about how he will save them, how its only a matter of time.

Chloe doesn't have the heart to tell them that as long as the sun is red Clark isn't coming.

They'll figure it out on their own soon enough.

A week in Oliver finds them. He's got ten more following him. A scrappy band of cage fighters and bar brawlers. Life's undesirables . . .

Chloe doesn't think she's ever seen anything more beautiful.

She becomes their leader by default. She didn't intend it, doesn't even want it, but it happens all the same. And every night she walks the line of their sleeping quarters, watches a mother teach her twin toddlers not to cry (they can't afford the noise), a ten year old learn to wrap a wound, a young man sit silent with the engagement ring he'd bought the day the sun went crimson.

After three weeks she can't take it anymore.

She's tired of looking after this patchwork cadre.

So she stops—sends the fathers to scavenge for kryptonite, has Oliver start to teach the women to fight, the children to make arrows and field dressings.

Chloe's done leading victims.

Watchtower starts building an army.

----

**September 2009**

Six weeks have gone by when Oliver comes to her with news of a prize that almost makes her fall in love . . .

A generator. An honest-to-God gas powered generator.

It's not much but it's enough to run her computer for a few hours every few nights, to start parsing through the files of information she'd managed to take with her.

That's when she finds it. A data burst that isn't hers. Normally she'd never open it, but she's not online and normal stopped being the watchword weeks ago.

When the information starts to decompress, she can't believe her eyes.

It's the mother-fucking jackpot, manna from heaven—maps of the city, schematics of power grids, security codes for the LuthorCorp systems. And while it might not be everything they need, it's a damn good start.

She pulls over Matt and Andrea who used to be engineering students at MetU and hands them pencils and paper.

"Draw. Quickly."

Matt finds her an hour later, out of breath, eyes alight. "You need to see this."

It's an uplink buried deep in the encryption, a possible portal to the outside, to information. It's also a potential hole in their defenses, a way to be tracked. She could put everybody at risk doing this.

But 'at risk' has become their status quo.

She copies the drives, and hands them to Oliver with instructions. "If I'm not back by morning get everyone moved. Don't try to contact me, don't try to find me."

For a moment he looks like he's going to protest, but they both know Oliver stopped trusting his judgment a long time ago. Hers is what they've got left. Instead he just says, "Want to tell me where you're going?"

Shouldering her backpack she curves her lips in something that once might have been called a smile. "Down the rabbit hole."

-----

She waits until she's at least three miles away, into an area that used to be one of Metropolis's less desirable neighborhoods. A lifetime ago, when she'd been scrapping for stories to impress her editors, she'd spent a night down here trying to track down a prostitute who'd lodged a complaint against a deputy mayor before disappearing. At the time, the thing that had impressed her most was the noise, the oppressive cacophony of a world governed by different rules, different timetables.

It's deathly quiet now.

Positioning herself in a doorway with the fastest route back to subway lines, she boots up, starts her timer, and activates the uplink.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

She's onto the boards, blanketing every one she can think of with post after post. The message is simple – "_We are here. We will not lay down. If you are out there, stand up."_ She signs off with what has become their mantra. "_For our world – Watchtower"_

Three minutes.

Four.

She's pushing it. She knows it, but who knows when she'll get a chance like this again.

And maybe there's a part of her that's waiting, wondering if X is out there.

At six minutes, she gets her answer. A photo program opens of its own accord and there's an old stock image of the Washington Avenue train station and a time—1:00 a.m. X

It's four miles in the wrong direction from camp. She'll have to book it to make it. And she might be walking into a trap, but . . .

She's already running.

Screw it, their luck has to change sometime, why can't this be the day?

----

The train station is a tactical nightmare. Abandoned cars line the tracks, there's high ground from the old ticketing platforms. In short, except for the multiple escape routes, it's the perfect place for an ambush.

And its such a human idea (what's the point of an ambush when you can easily survive a frontal attack?), that she almost relaxes at the thought.

She still keeps her finger on the trigger of her crossbow. The kryptonite arrow will be just as deadly to a human as a Kandorian. Probably moreso.

The sound of a gun cocking behind her in salutation tells her she'll never get the shot off in time.

Holding up her crossbow in the grip Oliver taught her makes it look like she's giving up, but keeps her options open, she calls out, "I'm a friend."

The barrel comes to rest against the base of her spine, as a gloved hand begins to clumsily pat her down and disarm her with a strange, stilted inefficiency. "Somehow I doubt that."

That voice.

For one moment she thinks she's hallucinating, but when finally the gun is removed from her back, she's not surprised to turn and find a ghost standing in front of her.

"Son of a bitch."

Lex Luthor just lets the corner of his mouth curve up in a half-smile, "And hello to you to."

He's ten times worse for the wear than she is. In the moonlight she can see that one side of his face is scarred almost beyond recognition, and though his left hand is gloved she can see now why the pat-down didn't feel as efficient as it should have been—the two outside fingers are twisted at a strange angle and it's not hard to tell that it doesn't work quite right anymore.

"You're dead."

"Let's just say the rumors of my death . . . have been greatly exaggerated."

"No. Oliver killed you. He told me. The explosion, there was DNA . . ." she trails off, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid as she realizes she's had this conversation with someone before.

Lex leans back against one of the cars, gun pointed down, but still very much in hand. "Please don't tell me you think my ex-wife is the only one capable of faking their death with a genetic clone. I'm vaguely insulted."

"But why?"

"You know the advantage of being dead when people want to kill you? They stop trying."

"You're X."

It's the obvious deduction, and standing here underneath a blood moon in an insane world, she finds she's not even surprised. Maybe a little disappointed. She'd been hoping for an ally, not an old enemy.

He just smiles. "Hello Watchtower."

The sound of that word on his lips, a word that's come to mean freedom, mean survival and the best of what's left in humanity, is enough to make her all too muted emotions suddenly flash white hot, and she snarls, "What the hell are you playing at?"

"Do I look like I'm playing?"

He doesn't. He really doesn't. He looks hard, looks pissed off, looks like tempered metal and edged blades, looks like the last thing on his agenda is anything resembling amusement.

He looks like a weapon she wants in her arsenal.

"So this is what? Penance after your attack dog did this to us?"

"Yes, let's stand here and apportion blame. Because we don't have better things to do." Finally, he holsters the pistol, and reaches out to slide open the door to the box car.

She could kill him now. His back is partly turned, her cross bow is half a pace away. Drop to her knee, come up firing . . . she could make the shot.

But he's human.

He's human and she's seen so many people die.

And revenge is a luxury she can't afford. Not anymore.

Lex finishes pushing open the door and turns back to her, and she can tell from the look in his eyes . . . he knows _exactly_ what she was just thinking.

Still keeping her eyes on his, her peripheral vision on his hands, she lowers herself down slowly, picks up the crossbow. He doesn't move. She reaches out for her knife, finds it over to her right. With a knowing smile, Lex reaches into his pocket with his bad hand, pulls out her Glock and drops it to the ground.

He kicks the gun over to her. "For the record, I wasn't the one who let Mercy off her leash."

No that was Lana. Lana who thought she was doing something so good, cutting off Lex's conduit, showing Tess exactly what kind of man she was working for.

Everyone has been so focused on the master, none of them ever thought to worry about the pet, until it was too late.

Tucking the gun in to the back of her cargo pants, she stands and comes over to the boxcar. There's a black bag sitting there like an offering. Still keeping one eye on him she reaches out and unzips it.

What's sitting there makes her take a faltering step back, suck in a shaky breath.

It's two bars of refined Kryptonite.

Two beautiful, beautiful bars of something that a month ago in this man's hands would have made her blood run cold. Now it makes her giddy and happy, like its Christmas.

How the world has changed.

Lex taps the edge of the car. "Lead-lined, for the shipment of certain sensitive materials. The Kandorians won't know what's here unless they come looking."

She about to ask how he knows that when she sees the faded LuthorCorp logo on the outside . . . God, there's so much about this city he might know, so much he could tell her . . .

He drops a phone on the top of the bag. "That uplinks to network. Don't leave it on, don't spend much time on it. But send me a list of what you need, and I'll get it for you as best I can."

"How did you set up a network they haven't destroyed?"

"Mercy may have taken over the LuthorCorp systems, but . . . they're still my systems."

"You didn't- A LuthorCorp satellite? You hid it on a LuthorCorp satellite."

Lex smiles, "I hid it on all the LuthorCorp satellites."

She has to admit . . . she is the tiniest bit impressed.

And for the first time in weeks, she feels something she's been faking for the sake of others . . .

She feels hope.

Pocketing the phone, she zips up the bag and slings it over her shoulder. Starts to walk away, and then turns back to ask one final question.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't like uninvited guests," he pulls out his gun, rechecks the clip, racks a bullet, and adds with glinting, ice-cold eyes, "And I _don't_ kneel."

Now _that_ she believes.

"I'll contact you."

- + - + - + - + -

**Final Author's Note – ** I should point out, this fic came out of a Chlex by Request even I'm doing over on N-S whereby people can prompt me and I will write them at least a ficlet (or in this case more) in exchange for them reviewing someone else's fic that they haven't reviewed before. Athena over there asked for a fic where Lex was in secret contact with Chloe after Oliver presumably killed him in season 8. I couldn't figure out how to do that realistically with out changing the paradigm of everything we knew. And then I realized the events in Pandora did exactly that. So Athena deserves a shout out for getting my mind chugging in this direction. So if you enjoyed this, please let me know, but more importantly in the spirit of the event . . . go review another fic you haven't before.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I really did have this outlined to be three chapters. Only as I continue to write scenes and go back to where I want all the characters to be by the time Pandora rolls around and all the gaps I want to fill in . . . it expands. So to keep me from turning this into an epic, but give me enough room to cover all my points, we're doing two months a chapter. So we're going from approximately 3 chapters to 5-6 chapters. *Sigh*

- + - + - + - + -

**Chapter 2**

_**October 2009**_

Oliver is suitably wary of the assistance from the get go.

"This is a big risk."

"It's all a big risk. But come on, two bars of kryptonite, we couldn't get that much on ten scavenging missions. This is our break Oliver, and you know it."

He turns the bar over in his hand, runs his thumb along the edge. "How did this X even get a hold of it? There's maybe a handful of places that I can think of that were refining kryptonite like this before Zod, and they were all connected with LuthorCorp."

"And I can tell you stories about kids in Smallville turning the rocks liquid for the high. If we've got it now, does it matter where it came from?"

He sets the bar back down. "I don't trust this guy."

He shouldn't. None of them should, but there's trusting and there's using, and she's learning to do one without the other.

"You don't have to," she promises. Locking gazes with him, she offers a compromise. "Just trust me."

Oliver looks at her for a long moment, and then picks up both the bars. "I'll get the kids started." Then before he's gone, he looks back over his shoulder one last time, "I trust you. You're the only thing left that I trust."

She wants to tell him not to say things like that, not to look at her that way. Instead, she just nods, goes back to making a list of supplies, trying to prioritize them.

He stands there for one moment more, waiting for something that she won't give him, then finally turns and walks away. He been doing it more and more lately, standing at the door to her heart and knocking, asking to be let in.

But she can't, she just can't. She's lost so many people and before this is all over she's going to lose more. She'll probably lose him or he'll lose her.

They can't care for each other too much when that happens.

The team can't afford the fallout.

-----

True to his word, Lex gets her what she asks for. Not as much as she'd like, not as quickly, and on one occasion not at all. It's only a trickle, but it's something.

And sometimes he gets her things she didn't ask for . . . dried fruit, paper back books, a child's ball, a couple packs of cigarettes.

Every week or so a little luxury she'd never put on the list tucked in with the practicalities—kryptonite and maps and medicine. Wool sweaters with the winter and clean socks for their feet. The things that keep the camp functional.

But it's the other things, the things he adds on his own that people look forward to, that raise their spirits and keeps them going.

Trust Lex to understand the human need for physical comforts.

The playing cards that start a weekly poker game for chores and the extra shift on the guard line that she used to have to rotate.

The razors and cheap soap that still make them all stand a little straighter, feel a little better.

The fifth of scotch tucked in with the blankets and kryptonite bullets that turns the mood into something almost jovial.

They pass it through the camp like communion wine, each one of them taking a swig, making a toast. And she doesn't realize what they're saying until Neil (a wiry, tattooed bar tender from North England of all places) passes it to her with a broad smile, and repeats, "To X, the gorgeous bastard."

Chloe thinks she's about to be sick. Still she takes the bottle in a numb hand and repeats the toast, "To X," because it's expected.

She downs her portion a little too hard to chase the taste. Passes it over.

Oliver looks down at the label. Doesn't drink, doesn't toast. Just hands it off with a frown.

----

_**November 2009**_

She's barely out of the subway tunnel before there's a hand over her mouth, another at her waist, and she's being lifted up and unceremoniously tossed into one of the boxcars that sits just at the entrance to tunnel. The door firmly slid closed behind her.

It takes her a moment to realize what's happening, to recognize friend over foe (well, sort of), protection over assault, and before she does she's rolled into a crouch and brought her pistol up in one fluid movement.

Only the fact that it's too dark to see, and she's in an enclosed metal space keeps her from firing.

Lex clicks on a flashlight, puts a hand out to move the gun away from where it's aimed at his chest. "Charming."

"Christ," she stands and puts her gun away with a sigh, "Don't scare me like that."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind for next time."

"What the hell?"

"Fly-over patrols. They started fifteen minutes ago. Zod is blanketing the city for Thanksgiving. Assuming they're just x-raying and don't come down and walk for sound, we should be okay."

Chloe's heart drops in her chest, and she makes a lunge for the door. "My team-"

Lex catches her around the waist with his good arm. "You can't do anything for them. Not without getting caught yourself and putting us both at risk."

"I don't care. I have to-"

A quiet snick and the press of a switch-blade to the outside of her thigh cuts her off, as Lex whispers low and gentle against her ear, "I'll hobble you if I have to. How far will you get then? How much help will you be?"

There's no question he'll do it.

"Bastard."

"Are you going to be smart?"

She nods grudgingly, and he relaxes his hold ever so slightly.

The knife stays at her thigh.

They're working on their trust issues in baby steps.

The worst part is he's right. There's no way she could get back in time to be of help. Oliver's either got everyone underground into the sections of the tunnels they coated with lead paint to up the interference (thank you Metropolis's slum-lord population) or he doesn't.

Either way there's nothing she can do, other than lead the Kandorians straight to them.

The last of the fight goes out of her at that thought. As if sensing her resignation, Lex releases her and steps back, snaps the switch blade closed.

"Looks like we'll be spending the night together."

"And you didn't even buy me dinner first."

A flash of amusement cross his face at that and he squats down to unwrap one of the parcels, tosses her a power bar, follows it with a piece of chocolate, and then holds out a hip flask, "Dinner, drink, dessert. Don't let it be said I didn't wine you and dine you."

She laughs because she has to. Because joking about it is so much better than thinking about the reality. About her team and the flyovers. . .

She unscrews the flask and takes a swig. The scotch has been heavily watered down and she doesn't know whether it's rationing or precaution against over-indulgence. It still uncurls in her belly with a pleasant artificial warmth.

Handing it back over, she asks, "So does this make me your cheapest date?"

"Cheapest, most expensive. Depends on the measure."

She's not sure she wants to know by what measure this paltry little offering has cost him the most.

----

Two hours later they're sitting back to back in the middle of the box car in the pitch black—the bar of kryptonite out on either side of them their only illumination—each facing a door, a crossbow in her hand, a gun in his. The combination gives them both silence (if they're found by one) and numbers (if they're found by more).

It's not an unfamiliar position for her. She and Oliver have done it a dozen times in all kinds of settings, having two different conversations around the fires, at the end of a long night on the watch line. She even thinks she fell asleep once that way. She'd never let herself do it in his arms, but against the hard steady safety of his back . . . well that's not really taking comfort at all.

Everything's different with Lex, misshapen and wrong. The feel of him there, just behind her, his back against hers, his breathing in sync, it doesn't make her comfortable or reassured. It makes her itchy, makes her alert and keyed up in a way that has nothing to do with adrenaline or fear, just a horrible awareness that this moment encapsulates just how far off course the world has gone.

More than a red sun, or a devastated Metropolis or a world without Clark Kent . . . Chloe Sullivan letting Lex Luthor watch her back is truly a sign of the end of days.

And suddenly she starts to laugh.

Silently, madly, hysterically laugh.

"Should I even ask?"

She shakes her head, forgetting for a moment that he can't see her. Finally manages to gasp out, "After everything, who'd have ever thought we'd be here."

Lex doesn't laugh.

"I did."

That makes her stop. "Wha-? God, you really are crazy."

"This was always coming. From the moment those meteors fell to earth twenty years ago, maybe even before that. This was always where we were headed. You saw in Clark the savior of humanity. I saw a harbinger of its ultimate threat. Either way, we were trying to protect the world. At the end of everything, we were always going to wind up on the same side."

"Are you really still telling yourself that?"

"Tell me that you wouldn't give anything for a handful of meteor powered soldiers with all the same abilities as the Kandorians, who can't abandon you, can't turn on you. Who don't have anything to lose?"

She has to admit the thought is tantalizing. What wouldn't she give not to have to keep sending ill-equipped and ill-trained people into battle knowing they're horribly outmatched, knowing it's dangerously close to a suicide run? What would she give to even the playing field?

"I wouldn't give up our humanity."

Now it's Lex who laughs, a silent mirthless chuckle that she can feel like a cold hand against her back. "You say humanity like it only means good things."

"It can be. It can be the best of things. We love and we hope-"

"And we hate and we lie and we betray. We're greedy and selfish and cowardly, and perfectly capable of enslaving ourselves without the outside help. Don't claim humanity as your standard, Watchtower. My methods of protecting us were just as human as yours, maybe moreso."

"Then why fight? If we're all so horrible, so unworthy, why not cut your losses and throw your lot in with Tess? It would be safer. Let Zod save us from ourselves."

"We're not his to save."

She supposes it's as good a reason as any.

Still in the silence that comes after, she can't help but think it's incredibly sad. Every one of her team fights for something they believe, for someone they've lost. They fight for a dream or a memory or a hope.

And this man at her back fights out of nothing. Just stubbornness and pride and a refusal to bow.

The idea makes something in her gut clench and before she knows it, she's talking again.

"My team thinks you're wonderful."

Lex doesn't respond.

She doesn't know why she's telling him, except she can't help but think everyone should be able to fight for something, so she continues, "They call you a gorgeous bastard. Neil, he's from England, started it. It kind of stuck."

"I'm guessing you haven't told them who I am."

She shrugs. "I didn't see the point. In this world, none of us are who we used to be. They call me Watchtower. They call Oliver Arrow. They call you X. And that's who we are. Who they need us to be."

He doesn't say anything. She doesn't expect him to, but something shifts, ever so slightly, an easing of muscles, a change in the wind.

Fifteen minutes later . . . "Gorgeous bastard?"

She smiles just a little, and giving in to the ache her neck, momentarily drops her head back on his shoulder. "It grows on you."

"Mmm," is his only response as he turns his head to glance down at her and then away.

But somehow in the darkness, she thinks she feels him smile.

-----

Oliver puts it together by the second bottle of scotch and the fourth bar of Kryptonite.

"This is insane!"

"It's practical. He has resources we don't, access we don't, and he's willing to put himself at risk to feed it to us."

"Yeah the great personal risk of sitting on his ass behind the front lines."

She arches an eyebrow. "Do you want to fight beside him?"

That shuts him up, and he flops down on one of the crates positioned against the wall. "I can't believe we've sunk this low. Taking Kryptonite from Lex Luthor."

"His Kryptonite stops the Kandorians just as well as the stuff we scavenge. And we put less people at risk to get it."

"This is why you've insisted on doing every run yourself, isn't it? You don't want the team knowing that their gorgeous X is the man who gave Tess Mercer the keys to end the world."

Dropping her fists to the plywood table, she braces against it and sighs, "I like the way they look forward to something. The way their eyes light up when there's a little piece of their old life tucked inside a shipment. Tell me you really want to take that away from them."

Oliver shakes his head, as if in disbelief at the world. "There should be limits."

"There should be, but there's not. Not anymore."

"But this . . . Lex, of all people?! After everything he's done? After the meteor freak experiments and Project Ares and what he did to Clark-"

She slams her fist into the wood. "And he kidnapped me and took my mother from me and kidnapped me again! Trust me, I remember exactly what he's done. But you killed him and the world ended and this is my team, so if I tell to you call it even and put the schoolyard brawl to bed? You'll damn well put it to bed."

He stands and snaps off a mocking salute. "Yes, Ma'am."

For a beat they glare at each other, the air electric with resentment and frustration and frayed nerves.

Chloe cracks first, rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. "Asshole."

Oliver lips twitch, and she knows he's fighting a smile at being called out like that. Then he steps forward with a sigh and picks up the bottle of scotch that started this fight. Cracking it open, he takes a small sip and hands it off to her. "Just be careful, okay?"

She accepts it with a smile of her own. "Always am."

They don't know how to stay mad at each other.

----


End file.
